Forced into marriage

Friday’s conference on the issue of forced marriage threw the spotlight on a practice, which, though thankfully rare, ruins the lives of those who are caught up in it. And few can understand this misery better than Mayah*, a woman who survived a forced marriage and is now using her experience to help others.

Jennifer Hollamby spoke to her.

MAYAH can’t remember the exact time her childhood ended. That’s because it never really started.

Her earliest memories are not of running with abandon or being scooped up by a thousand friendly faces, but of being beaten by the people who were supposed to keep her safe.

“We once had some sand in our back garden. I rolled around in it and then used the outside tap to wash myself, and I got beaten.”

Other gruesome memories include regular comments like “I wish you were dead” and “You are not my daughter.”

And what could a child of four have done to deserve such cruelty?

Simply, she had been born a girl into a patriarchal Sikh family praying for a boy.

And so the stage was set for a lifetime of extreme physical and emotional cruelty, which made Mayah attempt suicide more than once.

The tale that Mayah describes is one in which the most horrific behaviour becomes a normal, almost mundane every day occurrence.

“Women in our household were seen as being completely inferior to men and we weren’t even allowed to socialise with male members of the family.

“We were kept in separate rooms and almost everything warranted a beating, sometimes with hockey sticks or chairs.”

For Mayah, every day brought with it the same intolerable strain. Each time it would happen the same way: the sound of her father’s car and then fight or flight would kick in as her heart raced in fear at the prospect of what he might do.

But, incredibly, while Mayah’s childhood disappeared into an orgy of violence on the dubious pretext of family honour, she managed to develop a rebellious streak.

“I married a Christian boy I was in love with. When my father found out they arranged a hearing with religious leaders, who said we should stay together.”

But any hopes Mayah may have harboured that her life could finally begin, 20 years after she had been born, were dashed when her father, a powerful figure within his community, arranged for the couple to be arrested on false charges.

They had been married just 10 days; just 10 days for a couple in love bubbling with excitement about their future together before it all came to an abrupt end in the back of a police car filled with guns and officers.

Mayah was then taken on a drive during which her father’s brother put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her if she didn’t do what the family said.

She was sedated and taken to India where she was given pills which would abort the child she had conceived with her husband.

Over the next two years with her family, she was monitored 24 hours a day, while being trained, like an animal, to become her family’s ideal of the perfect Indian wife: the faultless cook and seamstress.

“During those two years I was utterly miserable. I was a dead person in a living body.”

Eventually Mayah’s family forced her to marry a man who wanted to gain entry into the UK and so she was surrendered into a six-year marriage which would involve violence and rape.

She said: “We moved to the UK and had two children. When I became pregnant again he pushed me down the stairs and he threatened to kill me at one point.”

During these gloomy times, Mayah had two breakdowns. Eventually she realised she was suicidal and contacted social services out of fear for the children.

She consented to temporary custody to her ex-husband to gain medical treatment, but Social Services thought she was an unfit mother and she almost ended up losing her boys to their father altogether.

But the turning point came when a friend told her about Karma Nirvana, an organisation which supports and guides men and women fleeing forced marriages and honour-based violence.

Mayah contacted Jasvinder Sanghera, Karma Nirvana’s director, who helped her get her children back and, at 33, her life is finally on an even keel.

She has that survivor’s capacity to generate some tangible sense of optimism where there was once despair, and now works for Karma Nirvana to make sure her nightmarish memories are more than just that; that they are also a means to help others.

Every day she hears tales from desperate, frightened, men and women whose lives are not their own.

“This problem is widespread and there are many dangers, people can be taken away to another country, locked away and even killed by their families.”

Mayah will never be able to regain those years that her family squandered, but she is blissfully happy with her children, a pair of boys who were lucky enough to inherit their mother’s personality.

She has some contact with her parents and says she still loves them but can’t forget what they have done.

She is also in contact with her first husband, who is married with a child, and they are close friends.

“If I didn’t have this resilience, I think I would have died.

“My children are my best friends and I want them to grow up to be who they want to be and follow their own path.”

By working for Karma Nirvana, Mayah is making sure that other people’s children will also, one day, have access to that most simple of dreams: to live their life as they want to live it and to follow their own destiny.

*Mayah’s name has been changed to protect her identity.